Leopards bounce back with victory

By Paul Huang / Contributing reporter

Sun, Jan 12, 2014 - Page 20

Luke Nevill scored a game-high 20 points and Wu Yung-ren added 14 more as the Taiwan Mobile Cloud Leopards defeated the Yulon Luxgens 59-54 at the Sinjhuang Sports Complex in New Taipei City yesterday afternoon.

The win not only helped the Leopards bounce back from a tough loss to top-ranked Pure Youth Construction last Sunday, but also kept them within striking distance of the Builders as they look to make a serious run for the regular-season title over the final two months of play.

The sloppy, low-scoring affair that saw neither squad able to score more than 20 points in any given quarter had them play to a 12-all tie after one quarter of action, before the Leopards skidded ahead in the second with a 20-10 run to lead it 32-22 at the half.

That did not intimidate the Luxgens, as they returned the favor with a 20-11 scoring margin of their own in the third, highlighted by Lu Cheng-rue’s seven points, to trail the Leopards by one at the start of the fourth quarter.

The game suddenly turned into a seesaw battle, with the two teams trading leads smaller than five all the way to the final minute before Nevill’s clutch 12-footer with 51 seconds remaining in the game gave the Leopards an insurmountable 58-54 lead.

Poor shot selection from long range on the part of Yulon that resulted in a dismal two-for-21 three-point shooting ultimately cost the Automakers the win as they failed to pick up a very winable game that would have brought their season record above the .500 mark for the first time in a while.

TIGERS 87, BANK OF TAIWAN 69

The Dacin Tigers shook off a 6-0 run by Bank of Taiwan early in the fourth with a stellar effort the rest of the way to cruise past the Bankers in an 87-69 triumph in the second game in Sinjhuang last night.

Twenty-seven points by the Cats in the opening quarter set the tone early in the game as they attacked the Bankers’ interior defense that was without the service of big man Liam McMorrow who, sat out the game because of stomach flu.

McMorrow’s absence was sorely felt as the Tigers heartlessly claimed a 57-32 rebounding edge that made it virtually impossible for the Bankers to compete.

Other than Chen Kuo-wei’s team-high 17 points, none of the Bankers scored in double-digits, while Dacin had a trio of double-digit scorers, led by Lin Guan-luen’s game-high 30 points.

Pure Youth 7, Kinmen Liquor 62

Pure Youth Construction won their second game in as many days with a 74-62 win over Kinmen Liquor in the third game in Sinjhuang yesterday to improve to 16-3 for the season.

Quincy Davis followed his game-saving act in Friday night’s come-from-behind win with a solid outing last night that netted him 16 points and 18 rebounds.